Save the Hero
by My-Crazy-Awesome-Sox
Summary: It's not easy being the chosen one, the one people look to, the one who never gives up. Everyone knows Sailor Moon will right wrongs and triumph over evil, but who's going to save the girl after she saves the world?


**A/N: **Hey y'all! Sooo I got a request to write a story based on Beyonce's Save the Hero from **SMTwilight** in like...February. WHICH I WAS TOTALLY FLATTERED BY AND SCREAMED AND RAN AROUND IN CIRCLES IN EXCITEMENT BECAUSE OF. I've had this partially written for like three months and I FINALLY finished it.

Originally I was thinking I'd do a little romance drabble because, well Usa and Mamo are my OTP and that's like all I write. But then I thought "But hold on a sec Sox, Mamo's not always the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to emotions. And how can I make one scout more important than another in the support system? Maybe the key to 'saving the hero' is not another hero, but rather a civilian." AND SO THIS-

This is for you **SMT**! I hope it was worth the wait and doesn't disappoint!

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She hadn't slept in three days. She didn't even want to. It was like her mind was stuck on repeat in those moments she really thought she would die. Flying at Galaxia like that, it was a kamikaze attack. Nothing had been left for her, she couldn't just give up of course—people still needed her to defeat the rogue senshi—she couldn't just let the golden scout keep killing people. But after that? She honestly hadn't thought there would be anything after that. It would have made her happy—to die and be with all of them. She'd thought that's what had happened at first, when they all appeared around her. It had taken several minutes to understand that she, that they all, were alive. When she realized that…she wasn't quite sure how she felt about it. The tears had stopped, and the shaking. She felt…empty. It was impossible to come to terms with what had just happened. She'd been prepared to die—she'd _wanted_ to die. And now everyone was acting like nothing had ever happened. They laughed and smiled and hugged her and kissed her and told her they knew she could do it, that they knew she'd put everything right again.

But _how_ did they know? _She_ hadn't even known. In fact she'd essentially given up; and that felt like yet another lock on the door to her pit of emptiness. She'd failed them. It was a fluke that everything had been put right again. She didn't deserve their happiness, their thanks, their love. She could barely think passed that notion. Her brain wouldn't turn off, it just played the same battery of thoughts over and over again. And so she didn't sleep. She just lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. And during the day she pretended, pretended she didn't feel empty. It was like a buzzing—in her mind, in her limbs, in every cell of her body. She felt like she was looking at the world through a window of frosted glass. She could see everyone and everything, but she didn't feel connected to any of it. She felt like she was constantly trying to figure out why any of it was important at all. No one seemed to really notice. When had she become so good at lying? Three years ago when this all started, she hadn't been able to hide anything, or keep a secret, or lie convincingly at all. And now…

She walked through the city, not really paying attention to where she was going. She was supposed to meet the girls somewhere—where had that been again?—whatever, she'd get there eventually. Her head hurt and her eyes felt heavy and scratchy, but they still would not close. She idly wondered what she must look like. Surely she couldn't hide her dilemma from everyone for much longer if she started looking like the zombie she felt like. An automatic door next to her swished open and she stopped, looking inside the establishment. She recognized it right away of course, but as she gazed that the game consoles and dining booths she felt…disconnected. She stood there, her presence keeping the sliding doors open, for a long time. Finally she took the two steps to enter into the arcade. She slowly walked to the counter looking around her and felt as though she were in a bubble, cut off from all the feelings this place used to stir in her. She sat at her usual red padded swivel seat and stared at the white Formica countertop, inspecting the little sparkly specs that dappled it.

This was how Motoki found her a couple of minutes later when he came out of the back room and the sight made him halt abruptly. He'd never seen her quite like that before. Head bowed, shoulders slumped, one finger listlessly tracing patterns of the countertop, a shaded look of…dejection on her youthful face. He'd been seeing this girl come in and out of his arcade for the past four years and he'd never seen her quite like this before. There had been a couple of times he could recall that came close, but her friends had been around her and she had balled about something seemingly insignificant and eaten more than one small girl should be able to and pretty soon she was her normal cheerful self again. But this time…this time she looked so fragile. She was thinner than he'd ever seen her. Her hair had little of the bounce he was used to and her face was drawn and had a greyish tint to it. And she was here in the middle of a school day.

He cleared his throat as to not completely startle her. "Usa-chan, I know it's expected that you'd be late to school, but I think skipping is a bit much, don't you?" He said carefully. At the sound of his voice her back straightened her eyes rose to meet his and a smile stretched across her face. To anyone who had not been watching her since she'd been in middle school she would look perfectly fine, but to him…her shoulders did not lose their slump, her eyes didn't regain their sparkle, and her smile looked almost plastic. And it broke his heart.

"Don't be silly, Motoki-onii-san, it's Saturday." She tried to make her voice light, but she was worried he was right. What day was it? Was that why she was the only one here? He looked too concerned. She had to try harder.

Now she had him worried. "Usa it's Monday." He came out from behind the counter, sat on the stool next to hers and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead to feel for a temperature.

Her fake smile seemed to slip for a moment. "Is it? Well I guess this sets a new record for being tardy. I'd better get to school." She made to get out of her seat, but Motoki stopped her.

"Oh no you don't. It's not worth it at this point and I think the bigger problem is why you thought it was Saturday and why you look like the world's about to end…again." Mamoru had called him two days ago which then resulted in the blonde racing over to his friend's apartment to be told the whole story…or as much of the whole story as the guy who'd been _dead_ for most of it knew. When he'd asked how Usagi was holding up Mamoru had told him she was fine, shaken, but fine. Maybe it was going to take a while for his friend's brain to come back to life like his body had, because this girl was most definitely _not_ fine.

Usagi's fake smile slipped back to full force. "I'm fine! The world's not ending, that battle is over!"

Motoki looked at her with an unimpressed and deadpan expression as he crossed his arms over his apron clad chest. "Bullshit." He said simply and continued to stare steadily at her until her façade began to crack. He took pity on her when she began to look like a caged rabbit, no pun intended of course, with her eyes darting around and her breathing sped up. He put his hand on her shoulder gently. "Usa, why don't the others know you're not ok?"

She squirmed in her seat willing him to believe her words. "I'm _fine_ Motoki. The others…they just want everything to be normal again. They d…died, and now they're back and life can go on. Just like after Beryl and the Doom Phantom, and Nehelania and, and Ph-Pharoh 90. They've died before and they came back, just like now. And now it's time to move on." She wouldn't look him in the eye.

He only understood half of what she was saying, but one thing jumped out at him. "But this time you didn't think they would come back, did you?" She was so broken. Mamoru didn't tell him what happened after the scouts died other than that Sailor Moon had purified that Galaxia woman so she wouldn't kill everyone. From the sounds of it Mamoru himself didn't know the whole story.

"Wh-Why would you say that?" She sounded almost panicked.

"Because you're not acting like they came back." He said sadly.

"I…I-I…" She stumbled for some type of assurance, but her brain wouldn't work fast enough.

"Usa," the blonde man put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked into her pale face, "When was the last time you cried?" She used to cry all the time, but she'd been much happier then too. He didn't think he'd seen a single tear from her since Mamoru left.

The question seemed to come out of left field and it caught her enough by surprise that she looked him straight in the eye. "What? What does that have to do with anything? I'm not a little girl anymore!" now she was getting angry, "Is that all you think of me as? Is that all you think I can do? Cry? That's what they think too, isn't it?! I'm their leader! I'm their princess! I tried _so hard_ to show them when Mamo-chan went away to college! No more crying. No more weak little Usagi-chan. It had to happen at some point, right Motoki-onii-san? The world can't have a queen who can't handle things!"

Motoki made sure his stern green eyes caught her crystal blue. "Crying doesn't mean you can't handle things. Crying is a _way_ of handling things. Don't let anyone tell you it's not ok to cry."

Usagi's breathing slowed a bit as she tried to anchor herself in his certainty. "B-But…" That's exactly what everyone had been telling her from the get go. She was a hero now and hero's don't cry.

"No buts." He smiled. "I don't know of anyone more able to 'handle things' than you, Usagi-chan. I know you guys don't tell me everything, and honestly I'm glad for it. It's enough for me to know that you are out there protecting us and that you come back safe. But I've been told enough to know that you never back down. You crying is _not_ important. What _is_ important is that you stand up and fight anyway. You don't cry out of self-pity and refuse to do anything." He took a breath. "I like that you cry." She looked at him, confused, and he chuckled a bit. "I was scared when I first found out you were Sailor Moon. I wondered if I knew you at all. You're a _super hero_ for goodness sake! But then I saw you cry. You cried for other people's pain as well as your own. And it reassured me that…" he looked away briefly, "that you were still human. You aren't some untouchable stone statue standing guard. You love us and you feel for us and I know that only makes you fight harder. I wouldn't want a queen who couldn't cry Usa." She just stared at him for several moments after he finished talking and he began to feel a bit awkward. Had he said something wrong? Maybe he didn't really know enough to be saying anything. But then her eyes became moist and her pale façade cracked and contorted into heartache unlike any Motoki had ever seen. A tear slid down her pretty face.

"Oh Motoki, I…I…" she threw herself into his arms and sobbed into his shirt, "I gave _up_!" Like her tears, the floodgates on her thoughts opened wide and she couldn't stop herself. "They were gone, they were _dead_! I was all alone and Galaxia was so _strong_ and I didn't want to kill her because it wasn't her _fault_ it was Chaos but she was going to destroy _everything_ and I…I couldn't see any other way. They were gone and I didn't have anything _left_. So I gave up. I stopped trying to _live_. I just wanted it all to be over…"

He was shocked and scared by her confession but she needed someone else to be strong for a while, so he wrapped his arms around her and murmured to her. "That's ok, Usagi-chan. No one would blame you for that. I would have given up long before you did and so would most everyone else. You're human and you're not indestructible. You have nothing to be ashamed of." Usagi let herself cry for a long time. She let all of the hurt and uncertainty flow out of her in waves. It felt so nice to know thank Motoki didn't judge her. That he didn't expect her to be strong all the time. That he was certain no one else did either. Not really. "You should tell them." Motoki broached when she began to calm down. It sounded awkward, like he wasn't sure if the advice would help or just make her cry again.

She looked up at him with reddened eyes. "They're so protective of me all the time." She sniffed. "I want to be able to protect them too. I want them to be able to believe in me and not have to worry about me all the time…"

The older blonde gave her a gentle smile. "They aren't mutually exclusive Usa." She cocked her head to the side in confusion and he chuckled. "It means they can do both; worry about you _and_ believe in you. I do. All the time. I bet you do it too, about them."

Usagi breathed deeply and realized he was right. She knew her friends could do just about anything, but she still worried about them. "A-Alright…I'll tell them. But…not yet?" She looked up at the man who was like an older brother to her. "I don't…I don't think I could take it yet."

He put his hands back on her shoulders and squeezed reassuringly. "Take your time, Usa. Just…don't forget that I'm here too, ok? You should tell them these kinds of things. They deserve to know, and they need to understand. But if you ever feel like you can't tell them something just yet…I'm here." She smiled at him. The biggest and truest, albeit tired, smile he'd seen since before Mamoru had gone away, and he felt it becoming infectious.

"I'll remember that, Motoki-onii-san." She hugged him close and murmured a "Thank you," before giving a monstrous yawn. "I, um, haven't been sleeping well." She said with a blush as he raised an eyebrow as if to say 'no kidding?'. "I think I'll go take a nap to, um…catch up on that." She waved as she ran out of the arcade. Her head held a little higher and her and her back a little straighter. Motoki sat back on the red swivel stool and sighed. She still held the world on her shoulders, but maybe he'd been able to help keep her from letting it crush her.

Someone had to save the hero.

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**A/N:** I love Motoki you guys. I kind of want a plushie of him. O.O that would be cool. And he could have a turtle on his apron! (PGSM reference there for those who are confused) H

Hope you enjoyed!


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